Indeed - its amazing they keep doing it, since stuff like that (especially some of the pro-Obama posters, which are deeply suspicious in style) is a huge part of why the recent GOP ads have been so effective.
Effective? How is retaining the lag 'effective'?
We've been over this.
1. There's a known effect in the U.S. with racial minority candidates overreporting in polling by anywhere from 1-5% simply because the polled is afraid to look racist to the pollster.
2. For all the hype over Obama as the second coming, for McCain to be as close as he is means it's not working. And before Labor Day in the U.S. only political/policy wonks like us are truly paying attention. The great unwashed masses of Americans are busy with summer vacations, the Olympics etc. They won't even begin to
seriously spin the gears in their grey matter on the issue of the election until October, at the earliest.
3. There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that random phone polling is inherently flawed. They don't call cell-phones, and they don't call business numbers obviously, nor do they call late at night when more people are home. It skews results away from the er...
productive class in America. i.e. people at work. And these phone polls catch a lot of elderly retirees, college kids, people on welfare etc.
So when you read American polling data, especially that which is filtered through the liberal-biased mainstream media, here's your guide:
Obama 5% ahead = roughly 50/50
Obama/McCain 50/50 = McCain ahead by 5%
Now granted, when middle-America wakes up and starts thinking about this, it could all shift back decisively to Obama, mainly over "Bush Fatigue". But there's a few things that throw a wrench in that.
- McCain's reputation as a moderate and a maverick will help him with the middle, that they're getting a "Different kind of Republican", much as Clinton managed to sell himself twice as a "Different kind of Democrat".
- His POW/war-hero credentials will help him with the remaining WWII/Depression era voters who might otherwise trend Democrat.
- With his long senate career, there's not a whole heck of a lot in his record that'll hurt him. He's pretty clean. Most of his real problems are things that piss off the conservative base.
- Oil, Gas prices. America knows which party is standing in the way of domestic exploration and drilling, and it is not the Republicans.
Obama on the other hand...
- The McCain campaign hasn't even started going after his associations with Rezzco, Rev. Wright, or Dr. Rashid Khalid/Hezbollah. All the damage he's taken so far has just been from the MSM which backs him. Wait until it gets brought back up in attack ads!
- Debates. McCain is good on his feet. Obama gives great speeches, but off the cuff, he's very, very weak. He even says things that are damaging. "Bitter Americans, religion & guns" etc. Michelle is worse.
- Defense/Terrorism. The American Middle knows Obama's weak on it, and McCain is stronger. Only the truly hard left honestly believes it does not matter, and 1/2 of the partisan left deludes themselves or has enough cognitive dissonance that Obama is just as good.
- Despite his short tenure, Obama has one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate. Each vote can be made into an advertisement to hurt him. OTOH, McCain, the "bad votes" are just pissing off his own base mostly, or is overly-complicated stuff that will have Americans scratching their heads and yawning in no time flat...
